Product Description

The General Services Administration (GSA) was responsible for sorting and marketing the U. S. Treasury’s hoard of silver dollars after the Treasury ceased issuing silver dollar coins in 1964. In a series of sales lasting from 1973 to 1980, this hoard of several million silver dollars, mostly Morgan Dollars minted at Carson City (CC), was dispersed via auction and fixed prices. Sealed in rigid plastic holders and boxed with a message from then President Richard M. Nixon, these silver dollars account for most of the mint state CC Morgans known today.

Veteran numismatists may remember the great rush on silver dollars that occurred during the early 1960s. For generations these coins had laid undisturbed in Treasury and Federal Reserve vaults, serving primarily as a backing for Silver Certificate notes. In 1935, when Congress changed the written obligation appearing on Silver Certificates so that the notes could be redeemed “in silver” instead of in “silver dollars”, production of silver dollar coins ceased. Only in the far western states were silver dollars used in daily commerce, and even collectors showed little interest in Morgan and Peace Dollars.

Starting about 1958, however, the number of silver dollars being withdrawn from government vaults increased annually, reaching a fever pitch in 1963-64 following the discovery of previously scarce dates. Lines stretching for blocks formed around the Treasury Department headquarters in Washington, as speculators bought up silver certificates to redeem them for $1000 bags of “cartwheels.” In March of 1964 the Treasury, after having discovered many bags of scarce CC silver dollars, stopped redeeming Silver Certificates with silver dollars, offering bars or granules in their place. After June 24, 1968 the redemption of silver certificates in silver ceased altogether, although the notes remain legal tender to this day.